FAKE Ficlet: Spring Day

Title: Spring DayFandom: FAKEAuthor: badly_knittedCharacters: Ryo, Dee.Rating: PGSetting: After Vol. 7.Summary: It’s perfect spring weather, and Ryo and Dee are lucky enough to have the day off.Word Count: 500Written For: Prompt 22: Blossom at anythingdrabble.Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.

Spring was well and truly underway; the trees were full of pink and white blossom, looking like cotton candy from a distance, and the air was full of birdsong as territories were proclaimed and defended. The honey-sweet scent of lilacs tickled Ryo’s nose and he inhaled deeply; days like this it felt good to be alive.

Even Dee was cheerful, having started taking his allergy meds well in advance this year. For once he could appreciate the sight and scent of blossom without sneezing his head off every few minutes and wanting to claw his eyes out to stop them itching.

“This is the life!” he said, sprawled on the grass beneath cloudless blue skies, hands tucked behind his head, sunglasses shading his eyes.

Ryo agreed. Only three weeks ago it had felt as if winter would never end, patches of frozen snow still lingering in places where the sun, when it shone, didn’t reach, but now… It was hard to remember what the park had looked like under a blanket of snow and with heavy clouds hanging low overhead, threatening more of the same.

“I feel sorry for everyone who’s at work on a day like this,” Ryo mused. It was his and Dee’s good luck that their first day off in over a week happened to coincide with the warmest and sunniest day of the year so far. Staying home and catching up on chores hadn’t been an option; you didn’t waste a glorious day like this one, not if you had any sense.

Naturally Ryo had brought his camera with him. The last time he’d been out taking photographs of the park had been after a fresh snowfall, because it was the first chance he’d had to test the snow setting, but this was about a hundred times better and he’d already filled one memory card with shots of blossoming trees, flowering plants, and singing birds. If he weren’t a cop, he thought he might have liked to be a photographer. Maybe he could turn some of his photos into greeting cards and sell them to raise money for Mother’s orphanage. He suggested it to Dee.

“Sounds like a neat idea in theory, but it would cost you a fortune in printer ink,” Dee pointed out.

“That’s always the downside, isn’t it? Pictures of photo quality can be printed on most home printers, but the ink cartridges only seem to last five minutes and they cost the earth. Digital cameras are great for a lot of things, but cameras that use film have their advantages too, especially for people who can develop their own photos.”

“Which neither of us can. I don’t think the chief would be impressed if we tried to get the lab people to do it for us.”

Ryo laughed. “Good point. So, ready to move on yet? We could walk down by the lake and have lunch there. Less chance of getting falling blossom in it.”